The Archdiocese of Mumbai hosted the Jubilee for tribal migrants to
India’s megacities in search of a stable job, but where they are often
marginalised and forgotten by the authorities.
The Archbishop of Mumbai Card Oswald Gracias promoted the event in
cooperation with the Chotanagpur Migrant Tribal Development Network
(CMTD), a socio-pastoral movement.
"We convened this meeting to hear the problems, challenges and needs of our tribal brothers and sisters,” he told AsiaNews.
The Archbishop of Ranchi Card Telesphore Toppo, who is of tribal
origin, celebrated the liturgy in St Peter's Church in Bandra. The
celebration is part of the two-day Jubilee pilgrimage Card Gracias has made in his diocese, during which he also visited the sick.
More than 5,000 migrants participated in this jubilee. Most of them
come from the plateau of Chota Nagpur, a region that lies between the
states of Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Chattisgarh and
Jharkhand.
About 80,000 tribals from the highland live in Mumbai. They left home
to escape poverty and the lack of employment opportunities. However,
experts point out that in the big city they are forced to live in
undignified housing conditions and accept menial jobs to survive.
Most live in slums on the outskirts of the city without electricity,
sanitation, room, privacy and medical and health care. In these
conditions it is difficult to raise children and security remains a
problem for single women, who prefer to live in homes where they work as
domestic servants.
Migrants suffer discrimination of all kinds; often, children are
treated with contempt by their schoolmates, and domestic workers cannot
accompany their employers to places of worship.
They also do not have the means to learn English, used only by the
upper classes whilst most Indians speak local languages, which would
allow them to work for foreigners who usually pay more.
Faced with these difficulties, the two cardinals have decided to
activate development plans and engage in cooperation between the
archdioceses of Mumbai and Ranchi.
"We are brothers and sisters,” Card Gracias said. “Let us be brothers
and sisters. You come from outside, but you are not outsiders, you are
our family. "
The archbishop of Mumbai, who is also president of the Federation of
Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), outlined a five-point action plan.
The latter means taking care of the pastoral needs of migrants:
celebrating liturgies in Hindi and inviting the missionaries working in
their areas, ensuring that migrants receive the sacraments, organising
social events that involve migrants in an active way, register migrants
arriving to create better links with the diocese of origin, and ensuring
security in a city like Mumbai full of dangers.
Card Toppo expressed deep gratitude to "my brother Card Oswald".
The
latter’s gesture, he pointed out, makes it clear that "we are not
guests, that we all belong to the family of the Church."